


Inappropriate Emotions

by afteriwake



Series: A Past Love [8]
Category: Doctor Who, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-05
Updated: 2012-07-05
Packaged: 2017-11-09 06:15:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/452258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He hated the mess emotions were making of a perfectly fine friendship, especially the emotion of love. But he wasn’t the only one at war with himself over that particular emotion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inappropriate Emotions

He was very well aware that he should not be having the type of feelings he had for her. Her husband had died only a month prior in her timeline, though he’d been buried nine years in his. And she had loved him very much, very deeply. She would call him when the nightmares struck, and he learned more about their life together in these late night phone calls.

He was envious of a dead man, and it was a position he had never been in before, competing with a ghost. The more time he spent around Amelia the more he hated what he had been forced to give up, and the more envious he got. He began avoiding all her daytime calls, and at night he spoke little. He didn’t know what to say or how to say it without ruining what he had been given back, but it was hard, just to be her friend.

He must have done too good a job at pushing her away because he went a week without hearing from her. He dug into his work, letting it consume him, but when the case was done he felt a loss, and he felt adrift in a mine field, so to speak. Molly was too consumed with her work and the approaching birth to notice, but John did. On the eighth day of no contact from Amelia John suggested they go for a stroll while Molly prepared dinner.

Sherlock flipped up the collar of his jacket against the brisk wind as he fell in step with his friend. John spoke first. “You fell in love with her all over again, didn’t you?” he asked, and Sherlock nearly stopped in his tracks. Damn, but he forgot how perceptive John could be when it came to matters of the heart.

“Yes,” he said brusquely. “She’s still in mourning. It’s not appropriate.”

“Well, yeah, but it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen all the same. So let me guess what’s happened. You kept her at a distance because you don’t know how to handle what’s going on with you, and she hasn’t spoken to you in a while, and now you’re sad, lonely and desperate.”

“Not desperate. If I was desperate I would have gone to her home,” he pointed out.

“All right, then you’re just sad and lonely. Am I correct?”

“Try lonely and confused, and you know how much I hate confusion.”

“I do,” John said. “Normally I would say tell her, but that would put her in an awkward position. Can you suck it up and just be friends?”

“I’ve been trying,” he said. “And failing miserably these last few weeks, I might add.”

“Ah. So you’re thinking no contact with her will keep you safe. You know she still talks to Molly, right? I’ve been hearing her side of this through Molly for the last three days. She thinks she made you mad, that you’re irritated with her. She’s wondering what she did wrong.”

“She didn’t do anything wrong. I’m the one who did the wrong things,” he said with a sigh. “This is why I don’t get attached. Emotions are…messy. Especially love. And I don’t want to hurt her again, not like I did when we were young.”

“Newsflash, Sherlock: you’re both adults now. No one’s going to step in and say you can’t be together.”

“River might,” he said.

“She _might_ ,” he said. “But she’s got her own life and her own entanglements and as much as Amy loves her daughter she’s only going to listen to her so much. When she’s ready to move on, if she chooses you, River’s objections may be meaningless.”

“That’s if she chooses me. What have I got to offer her?”

“She can take care of herself, you know. She does get paid to look very pretty and sell things.”

“That’s not what I mean,” he said, beginning to get irritated.

“I know,” he said. “You can offer her you, and frankly that’s not a bad thing. She’s always going to love her husband, but I’ve seen how she looks at you. Whether she’s thinking it or not she holds you in high esteem. I don’t think she ever got completely over you. Has she told you her opinion on soul mates?”

“Once, when we were young. It was that a person has many of them, who all fulfill different things in their lives.”

“Maybe you’re one of hers. Obviously she’s yours. So shelve your feelings and be her damn friend until you find out if you ever get a second chance.”

At this point they had walked around the block and were approaching their home. On the curb in front of their home was a red convertible, and Amy was leaning against the hood. “You set me up,” Sherlock said to John in a low voice.

“It was the only way to fix things,” he said. “Remember what I told you.” He clapped him on the shoulder, gave Amy a wave as they approached and then went inside. 

Sherlock stood across from Amy, who had her arms crossed in front of her chest. “Hello,” he said.

“Did I do something wrong?” she asked quietly.

“No,” he said with a sigh. “I pushed you away. I apologize.”

“Why?” she asked.

“It’s not important,” he said, looking down.

“Oh, yes it is. I want to know what’s going on in that head of yours, Sherlock. Why are you pushing me away?”

“I don’t want to tell you,” he said brusquely.

“Well, I want to know,” she said. “If I did something wrong I want to fix it. I miss you, you know. I miss talking to you.” She stepped away from the car and into his personal space. “So please, tell me what’s going on.”

“I’m in love with you,” he said quietly. 

“What?” she said, shocked.

“Do you really need me to repeat it?” he said.

“No,” she replied. “Oh, God, it all makes perfect sense now. You pushed me away because I’m still mourning my husband and you don’t think you can just be my friend, is that right?”

“Something like that,” he said.

“I have news for you. I’m going through a _massive_ amount of guilt right now because while I love my husband and miss him terribly I’m also fairly sure I should not be having the feelings I have towards you, either. At least not yet. I told Molly if she told that part to John there’d be hell to pay.”

His head snapped up. “What?”

“Yeah, apparently I haven’t gotten over you completely,” she said with a sigh. “And I’m terrified I’m going to lose you now too.”

“God, what a pair we make,” he said with a rueful smile.

“You’re telling me,” she said. “So what do we want to do about this? Because I am nowhere near ready to start dating again, even if I am dating you. And I don’t want to lose your friendship because I hold onto that like a lifeline most days to keep from drowning in all the emotions I’m having, even though in all honesty I should probably be leaning on someone else more while I sort it all out.”

“We can be strictly friends, I suppose.”

“All right. Just friends. What are the ground rules?”

“No kissing me on the cheek. No hugs. No affectionate gestures of a physical variety,” he said.

“Fine. I’m going to add no pushing each other away, no talk of our past relationship, and no being alone together right now.”

“I can agree to that,” he said with a nod. “Though it will be hard to have chaperoned phone conversations. I doubt John or Molly would appreciate me waking them up at three in the morning to listen to one side of a conversation.”

She grinned slightly. “Yeah, I can see how that would be a bother. All right. Strict self-policing of phone calls. No getting mushy. Anything else?”

“Talk to someone else about how you feel towards me. Molly should suffice. Instead of going to you I shall talk to John about it.”

“Okay. I can agree to all of that,” she said. She took a step back from his personal space and held out a hand. “Shake on it?”

He shook her hand, letting go after a few shakes to avoid lingering. “We’re agreed, then,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“Have you been invited in for dinner already?” he asked.

She nodded. “Molly’s making lasagna. Been a while since I had home-cooked lasagna.”

“Then let’s go in and get out of this cold,” he said. He went to the door and she followed, and they went inside. They had a plan and they had rules, he thought to himself. He could handle this. He could make a friendship with her work. And if it led to more than that, then he was fine with that as well. This was a very good thing.


End file.
